cars and dogs,MPs and rules

I had a lovely time on Wednesday evening meeting friends I haven’t seen for ages. I mention it because I wouldn’t like you to think that I have no other interests but animal wellfare. We all turned up at a book launch for a book on the battle of Britain. As most of us are of an age to remember the sound of a German aircraft engine, most of us had trouble remembering where and when we had worked together and names caused long pauses until we were joined by Geoffrey Whitehead who’s only seventy (if that). He was able to tell us that Simenon was the author of the play that Frank Finlay and I had done together forty two years ago. All I could remember was that he was French, wrote murder mysteries and boasted about the number of women he had seduced in his life.

Today I hear that two independent greyhound rescue kennels are reporting a surge in the numbers of dogs that need accommodation.

There are 63 bitches missing from Wimbledon’s racing programmes of the last 3 months we are asking the Greyhound Board of Great Britain to account for and……

DEFRA has published proposed rules and regulations for greyhound racing that it intends to put before the House of Commons from where it goes to the House of Lords for approval.
They do nothing for the dogs’ welfare while they are awayfrom the public gaze.
Having published them the welfare bodies were invited – yet again – to send in their comments (responses). DEFRA said there had been 2,451 responses, and that their “assessment” had addressed those responses. (Translating as Go away and stop bothering us) But somewhere in the DEFRA papers they had said that there had been additional responses from RSPCA supporters which missed the deadline and so were not considered.
On asking the RSPCA how many such responses were binned by DEFRA the answer is – 8,500!!!
Now, to quote, 1. “It is in a minister’s discretion whether to accept responses received after the deadline i.e. they are not bound by the consultation process deadline and
2. Often such late responses are accepted because to ignore them increases the arguments for judicial revue of the consultation process on the grounds that it was not reasonable.”
In other words, theere were actually 10,951 responses and DEFRA ministers decided to ignore 78% of them on a technicality.
Another example of New Labour’s idea of democracy.
Forget the marches, the committees set up by the Govt. the promised referendums etc. The voters get what their elected representatives have already decided to give them.

One response to “cars and dogs,MPs and rules”

The sheer arrogance of this government is breathtaking and just typical of their action in every area from war to legalised snooping on the neighbours. But in everything which affects human beings the humans have choices – the dogs don’t have choices. They go where they are taken and have no words to express their unhappiness. Carry on speaking for them Annette!